A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Sansa IV
Summoned before the queen, Sansa writes the letters they dictate and pleads for her father's life on her knees before Joffrey's court.
The chapter retold
Summoned before Cersei in the aftermath of Ned's arrest, Sansa is made to write letters at the queen's dictation ÔÇö to Robb, to Winterfell ÔÇö urging her family to bend the knee and accept Lannister authority, a betrayal of her own house delivered in her own hand under duress. Brought before Joffrey's court afterward, she kneels and begs, with a child's desperate sincerity, for her father's life, still clinging to the belief that if she is only good enough, courteous enough, the boy she once wanted to marry will show her father mercy.
It's one of the book's most painful demonstrations of how completely Sansa's education has failed to prepare her for the world she's actually living in ÔÇö courtesy, the one weapon her whole upbringing armed her with, is worthless against people who were never going to respond to it. The letters she's forced to write also do real strategic damage regardless of anyone's intentions, putting the Stark heir on notice that his own sister's hand has, however unwillingly, been turned against him.
This movement: The Wine and the Boar
- Ned tells Cersei what he knows and gives her time to run ÔÇö mercy with a body count.
- A boar opens the king; Robert dictates a will naming Ned Protector; Ned edits one word: heir.
- A wineseller's poison misses Daenerys; Drogo promises his son the iron chair across the poison water.
- Renly flees south; Littlefinger promises the gold cloaks; the trap in the throne room closes.